Chosen Solution
So basically, my iPhone died yesterday and I put it in the charger. Before it died, it had some issues with the charger going in the whole, it was like it couldn’t go in all the way and I had to bend it at a crazy angle for it to charge. Nothing was wrong with the charger, I tried it on other devices and it worked fine. So I kept it there for a few hours and it was still showing the red battery screen, nothing else. That was weird because usually when it dies, as soon as I plug it in, it starts up again. So I looked stuff up, tried holding the power and home button on, tried the hairdryer trick… nothing worked. Now the phone wont even show the red battery screen. It’s pitch black. I’m at my wits end. What should I do? I left it to charge overnight and nothing happened.
If you are confident that your Lightning cable and charge block are functional, then you probably have a damaged Lightning port. Start by inspecting it to see if there is any dust or grit in there. If it looks clean, then I would try to replace it. You can order it from iFixit. Follow this guide. Always disconnect the battery first, keep track of your screws and be careful with the flex cables as they tear very easily.
Minho is on the right track. I would expect that there’s just a lot of “pocket lint” or similar gunk stuffing up the port and the charging cable simply isn’t making contact. I’d recommend you take a wooden toothpick or something similar and just see if you can scrape any gunk out of the port. I work at a repair shop, and almost always this is the only problem when people mention a poor fit with the cable and no-power issues. Its much more rare for the port itself to be damaged.
